Powers/Abilities: Hyde possesses heightened senses, sufficient to
identify people by smell, and can feel his own blood moving through his veins;
he can tell if a woman normally wears a certain perfume brand, even if she
is wearing another perfume at the moment, and he can tell if someone is lying
to him, something he does not like. His strength is superhuman, sufficient
to overpower and kill a grown lion, then throw its corpse several metres,
but not enough to break steel chains, and his agility is above normal, allowing
him to scale buildings with casual grace. He has enhanced endurance and control
over his own body; he can hold poison gas in his mouth without taking it
into his lungs, stop his heart and breathing for several minutes, then exhale
the gas back out his mouth, all without sustaining injury. He can also suffer
being shot dozens of times and continue to move and function, albeit badly
injured; he also heals faster than regular humans. He can access his own
and his alter ego Tom's memories with perfect clarity, as if watching a video,
complete with pause and rewind functions; he can also access his ancestor
Henry Jekyll / Edward Hyde's memories in a similar fashion. His transformation
between Jackman and Hyde is a genuine physical change, despite the relatively
minor difference in appearances between the two personalities - his hair
darkens, his hairline moves down, his eyes darken greatly, he grows a couple
of inches, loses weight, and his jawline alters. He draws on external electrical
energy to power the change, often resulting in fluctuations in nearby electrical
lighting, and either party can, by choice, prevent injuries they have sustained
from being transmitted to the other. When angered, Hyde's blackened irises
expand, and he manifests fangs. Tom's change into Hyde can be triggered by
conscious decision at a set time, or by anger, fear or arousal; Hyde can
also come through if Tom is asleep.

History:
Tom Jackman was, unknown to himself, the descendent of Edward Hyde, a powerful,
amoral version of Dr. Henry Jekyll, whose love for his maid, Alice, had
unwittingly triggered a transformation into Hyde, and whose brief life
and demise was fictionalised by the writer Robert Louis Stevenson; a friend
of Jekyll, Stevenson realised the doctor was lying when he claimed the
transformation was caused a formula, but maintained that fiction in his novel.
Hyde's villainy brought about his own demise, but though Jekyll died without
issue, Hyde sired a child. Hyde's bloodline retained their forebear's
transformative power, though it didn't normally manifest itself, and they
generally remained unaware of it. Meanwhile a medical research firm, Klein
and Utterson, spent the 20th century trying unsuccessfully to recreate
Jekyll's formula, hoping it would lead to lucrative medical advances. As
technology improved, they focused their hopes on cloning Hyde, but the results
were horribly deformed and yielded nothing useful.

One of the Hyde descendents who did transform was Sofia Jackman. In the late
1960s she abandoned her newborn son, Tom, hoping to protect him from her
alter-ego. However, Sofia's "Hyde" became involved with Klein and Utterson,
perhaps by marriage as she took the name Mrs. Utterson; while they were seemingly
unaware of her condition, the company learned of Tom Jackman, and monitored
the boy. Having figured out that Jekyll's maid was the real catalyst for
his change, Klein and Utterson successfully cloned Alice; unaware of her
true origins, the clone, Claire, had a relatively normal childhood. To keep
Tom close, Klein and Utterson hired him once he reached adulthood, and later
manipulated events so that he and Claire met. As the company intended, they
swiftly became romatically involved and eventually married. Eventually Claire's
presence in Tom's life triggered his transformation into Hyde, and Klein
and Utterson abducted him and his family, intending to purge Tom's persona
and experiment on Hyde. Instead, the normally self-serving Hyde sacrificed
himself to save Tom's family, as he loved them too, despite his claims to
the contrary. Tom survived, seemingly cured of his condition, and eventually
tracked his mother down, only to learn the hard way that she too had an
alter-ego.

Comments: Created by Steven Moffat, inspired by the Robert Louis Stevenson
tale, and played by James Nesbitt.